Dr. Michael Mascolo, Professor of Psychology at Merrimack College, presents a provocative challenge to psychology’s foundational assumptions about how we gain knowledge.

Drawing on Wittgenstein’s private language argument, mirror neuron research, and developmental psychology, Mascolo argues that both subjectivity and objectivity fail as sources of psychological knowledge. Instead, he proposes that all psychological understanding originates in intersubjectivity — the shared experiential space between people.

Mascolo traces how children learn to represent their own emotions not through introspection, but through a social process where caregivers name publicly visible expressions, and children then internalize those meanings. He extends this insight to argue that psychological science itself should be reconceived as a refinement of everyday intersubjective engagement, replacing the positivist model of theory tested against objective data with a hermeneutic process of corroboration across multiple intersubjective sources.

Dr. Michael Mascolo is a developmental psychologist, co-author of seminal papers with Kurt Fischer on skill theory and dynamic development, and founder of the Common Ground Institute.

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Introduction
00:16:47 — Psychology’s Cartesian heritage
00:25:30 — Wittgenstein’s private language argument and the beetle in the box
00:34:00 — The inner and outer as two sides of the same process
00:38:20 — How children learn emotion words through social interaction
00:41:00 — Why subjectivity fails as a source of psychological knowledge
00:43:10 — Why objectivity fails: we never just see what’s there
00:48:00 — The problem of values in psychological inquiry
00:52:45 — Proposing an intersubjective epistemology for social science

What makes one worldview better than another? While science has clear criteria for evaluating theories — internal consistency, explanatory power, experimental support — philosophy has lacked an equivalent framework. Until now.

In this talk, philosopher Dr. Clément Vidal presents nine meta-philosophical criteria for comparing and improving worldviews, organized across three dimensions: objective (scientificity, consistency, scope), subjective (personal consistency, utility, emotionality), and intersubjective (social consistency, narrativity, collectivity). He walks through practical tests you can apply at each level, from checking whether your values align with your description of reality to asking whether your worldview is compatible with current science.

Vidal connects these criteria to developmental psychology, explores why second-order philosophizing often loses touch with real-world impact, and makes the case that writing down and explicitly challenging your own worldview is one of the most powerful tools for intellectual growth.

Based on his paper “Metaphilosophical Criteria for Worldview Comparison”.

Timestamps

0:00 — Introduction

1:43 — Why Philosophy Lacks Criteria That Science Has

3:08 — The Big Questions Every Worldview Must Answer

5:44 — A Cybernetic Model Of Worldview Evolution

6:34 — Six Dimensions Of Philosophizing

9:26 — The Nine Criteria: Objective, Subjective, and Intersubjective

13:13 — Practical Tests For Evaluating Your Worldview

18:36 — Intelligent Design Vs. The Flying Spaghetti Monster

21:43 — Worldviews And Developmental Psychology

25:21 — How To Improve Your Own Thinking And Worldview

28:59 — Bootstrapping The Criteria: Applying Them To Themselves

30:56 — Conclusion

What if the same patterns shape physics, biology, mind, and culture?

Tyler Volk (NYU Professor Emeritus) explores how reality may be organised through recurring metapatterns — spanning everything from atoms to ecosystems to human societies.

Bringing together work from Meta Patterns, Gaia’s Body, and Quarks to Culture, Volk examines how systems form through relationships, how life scales through planetary interdependence, and how new levels of complexity emerge over time.

Key ideas in this talk:

• recurring metapatterns across nature and culture
• systems thinking as a deep structure of mind (“systemes”)
• Gaia theory and biochemical interdependence
• combogenesis: how new levels of organisation emerge
• propagation, variation, and selection across biological, mental, and cultural evolution.

This is a rich, cross-disciplinary exploration for those interested in: systems thinking, big history, evolution, complexity science, Gaia theory, and metatheory.

Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction and Tyler Volk’s background

00:02:00 Three themes: systems, evolution, pattern land

00:05:00 Metapatterns across nature and culture

00:08:00 Centred vs distributed systems

00:11:30 “Systemes” and systems thinking

00:15:00 Gaia theory and biochemical cycles

00:19:30 Biosphere vs Darwinian evolution

00:23:00 From quarks to culture

00:25:30 Combogenesis and PVS dynamics

00:29:30 Pattern land and relations

In this session, philosopher and social scientist Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm explores the growing crisis facing the humanities — from declining enrolments and collapsing public confidence to the deeper legitimation crisis at the heart of modern academic disciplines. He traces how fields like history, sociology, anthropology, and literature were originally formed, how their core categories later came under critique, and why the fragmentation of knowledge has left the human sciences struggling to explain their value.

Storm traces how fields such as history, sociology, anthropology, and literary studies were originally formed in the 19th century, and how the core categories that structured these disciplines — concepts like art, religion, culture, and society — later came under sustained philosophical and historical critique. Over time, this has contributed to fragmentation, hyper-specialisation, and a weakening of the shared mission that once guided the human sciences.

Yet Storm argues that this moment of crisis also presents an opportunity. By moving beyond outdated disciplinary silos, rethinking knowledge through humble, provisional inquiry, and shifting from substance ontology to process ontology, he sketches the possibility of a renewed intellectual project: the reintegration of the human sciences.

The discussion also explores how metatheory might help rebuild shared intellectual infrastructure across fragmented fields and support new forms of interdisciplinary inquiry.

Timestamps

00:00:00 – Introduction To Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm
00:01:57 – Framing The Crisis In The Humanities
00:05:24 – The Data: Declining Degrees And Falling Confidence In Higher Education
00:09:25 – The Humanities As A Legitimation Crisis
00:10:54 – The 19th-Century Origins Of The Human Sciences
00:14:28 – The Original Mission Of Disciplines Like History And Literature
00:21:55 – Critiques Of Key Categories: Art, Religion, Culture, And Society
00:29:36 – Epistemological Crisis And Disciplinary Fragmentation
00:35:16 – Crisis As An Opportunity For Reconstruction
00:42:05 – Metatheory And The Reintegration Of The Human Sciences

In this presentation, Dr. Lawrence Cahoone introduces Ordinal Naturalism — his non-reductive account of nature that integrates hierarchical systems theory, emergence, and Justus Buchler’s pluralistic metaphysics of “natural complexes.”

Beginning with an outline of the five “orders” of nature — physical, material, biological, mental, and cultural — Cahoone presents them both as distinct domains of phenomena and as stages in the historical evolution of nature, marked by increasing complexity over time.

From there, he retraces the philosophical path that leads to this view: from Columbia Naturalism and objective relativism, through the late-20th-century rejection of foundationalism, to contemporary theories of emergence and partial reduction (Wimsatt, Anderson, Simon, Kauffman, and others).

Key questions explored include:

• What does it mean for something to be real?
• Can reduction and emergence coexist?
• Do the natural sciences have priority over the social sciences?
• How can we avoid both reductionism and mystical holism?

Cahoone argues for a layered, interdependent, evolving reality: nothing floats free, nothing is causally isolated — and yet each domain (biology, mind, culture) retains its own integrity.

Timestamps

00:01:11 – The Five “Orders of Nature”

00:07:43 – From Modernity to Systematic Metaphysics

00:09:10 – The Rejection of Foundationalism

00:12:40 – Columbia Naturalism & Objective Relativism

00:15:28 – Justus Buckler’s Natural Complexes & Ontological Parity

00:18:22 – Q&A: The Whole, Ultimacy & Naturalism

00:28:01 – Emergence and Hierarchical Systems Theory

00:29:33 – Wimsatt on Reduction and Partial Explanation

00:36:39 – Defining Ordinal Naturalism

00:41:04 – Train Tracks: Contextualism vs Hierarchy (What’s “Prior”?)

Dear friends,

The IAM Research Forum is a new recurring space for our scholarly community. As things progress, these sessions will serve as opportunities for our scholars to present their work, share updates from working groups, and discuss projects moving towards publication.

In this session, Gregg Henriques presents Natural Philosophy 2.0: a proposal for reviving natural philosophy as a unifying framework capable of integrating modern science, mind, meaning, and value into a coherent worldview.

Dr. Henriques argues that while modern science provides an increasingly sophisticated cosmology, it still fails to offer a fully integrated worldview — particularly when it comes to mind, consciousness, value, and lived human experience. To address this, he introduces a directional framing (down / back / up / over, with out-and-in) for situating empirical science, emergence, evolutionary history, psychology, and meaning-making within a single orienting structure.

The discussion ranges across emergence and downward causation, big history and “combogenesis,” the problem of psychology, critical realism, information-processing revolutions, and how a renewed natural philosophy might help bridge the Enlightenment gap between objective knowledge and subjective life.

The second half of the session opens into an extended Q&A, where IAM scholars discuss the proposal in real time — pressing on questions of emergence and downward causation, critical realism, big history and combogenesis, the “problem of psychology,” information-processing revolutions, and how these ideas translate into lived understanding.

Discussion contributors include: Bonnitta Roy, Lawrence Cahoone, Mark Edwards, Michael Mascolo, Nick Hedlund, Brendan Graham Dempsey, Robb Smith, and Tyler Volk.

Timestamps

00:01:51 What Is Natural Philosophy 2.0?

00:03:07 The Core Orienting Frame: Down / Back / Up / Over

00:05:30 Natural Philosophy 1.0 and the Rise of Modern Science

00:08:18 Science and Philosophy Split Apart: What Was Lost

00:11:00 Why “Natural Philosophy” Is Re-Emerging Today

00:15:21 Core Claim: Science Gives Us a Cosmology, Not a Worldview

00:18:51 The Enlightenment Gap: Mind, Value, and Meaning

00:22:41 Q&A: Do the Social Sciences Already Situate Us in the Social World? (Mark Edwards)

00:33:41 The Problem of Psychology and Ontological Ambiguity

00:36:35 Q&A: Critical Realism: What’s Already Solved, What Still Isn’t? (Nick Hedlund)

00:44:58 Methodological Origins of Natural Philosophy 2.0

00:50:22 “Combogenesis” as a More Specific Alternative to Emergence

01:06:20 Clarifying What Counts as Emergence

01:11:25 Q&A: What Is the Right Unit of Analysis for Mediated Mind? (Mark Edwards)

01:16:33 Information-Processing Revolutions as a Driver of Causal Emergence (Brendan Graham Dempsey)

01:36:46 Humility, Participation, and Grounding the Framework in Lived Experience (Bonnitta Roy)

01:46:22 Closing Reflections

Dear friends,

In this episode of the Integration podcast, Mark Edwards joins Brendan Graham Dempsey and Nick Hedlund for an in-depth conversation on metatheory, meta-studies, and why methodological rigor is essential for navigating the global metacrisis. Edwards, one of the most influential contemporary scholars in integrative meta-studies, clarifies what metatheory is (and is not), why “big pictures” require disciplined methods, and how meta-studies can function as a kind of earth-system social science.

Key themes include the distinction between method and methodology, the role of absence and critique in generating new metatheoretical lenses, and the limits of progress-oriented and altitude-based frameworks. Edwards also reflects on epistemic humility, domain specificity, and pluralism — particularly the importance of taking indigenous and non-Western knowledge systems seriously in big-picture theorizing.

The discussion culminates in a wide-ranging reflection on the metacrisis, understood not only as a systems failure but as a planetary-scale trauma response, and on the future of meta-studies as a field grounded in what Edwards calls disciplined imagination.

Timestamps

0:00 Introduction
3:55 What Is Metatheory (and Why It Matters Now)
04:17 “Meta-Studies” as a Clearing in the Global Noosphere
10:51 Why Methodology Is the Missing Piece in Metatheory
13:52 Method vs Methodology
15:58 Scientific Methods for Metatheory
17:56 George Ritzer’s Four Functions of Metatheorising
19:50 From Meta-Methodology to Meta-Validity
21:18 Metatheory as a Human Universal
24:16 Moving Beyond Canonical “Great Thinkers” to Discover New Lenses
24:16 Absence as a Driver of Innovation in Metatheory
35:59 Integrating Across Domains Without Losing Rigor
42:08 The Problem with Altitude: Critiquing Progress-Oriented Metatheories
47:11 Indigenous Worldviews and the Problem with Cultural Stages
51:47 The Metacrisis and the Need for Metatheory
59:49 The Future of Meta-Studies: Disciplined Imagination

Dear friends,

In a new episode of the Integration podcast, Robb Smith joins Integration Journal Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Hedlund and Managing Editor Brendan Graham Dempsey to discuss the urgent need for integrative conceptual work in today’s world. Why do the interconnected challenges of the metacrisis demand integrative solutions? How can emancipatory struggles be strengthened through critical metatheory? What do emerging patterns of knowledge integration reveal about a bold new story of wholeness? Together, they outline the vision and scope of the new journal and explore the meaning and applications of an “integrative metatheory 2.0” beyond postmodernism.

Listen on your favorite podcast app

Timestamps

0:00 IAM in the Context of Radical Social Morphogenesis

12:39 A Meta-Systematic Metacrisis in Need of Meta-Systematic Analysis

20:21 The Problems We Face and the Stories We Tell

31:39 Advancing a Worldview for Long-Term Good

38:56 Critical Metatheory and Emancipatory Struggle beyond Postmodernism

49:20 Knowledge Integration and a New Story of Wholeness

1:02:34 Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice

1:08:52 Integrative Metatheory 2.0 in Service of Planetary Flourishing

1:21:00 Competing Worldviews in the 21st Century for AI and Value Alignment

1:29:01 Conclusion

Dear friends,

For the inaugural IAM Research Forum, Brendan Graham Dempsey, Nick Hedlund, and Robb Smith lay out the mission of IAM (Institute of Applied Metatheory) as a space for integrating knowledge across disciplines through “Integrative Metatheory 2.0” in the context of global metacrisis. Together, they explore the fractured state of knowledge in both the sciences and humanities, introduce the concept of the metacrisis as a crisis rooted at the level of worldview, and share IAM’s vision and strategy for 2026 and beyond.

The IAM Research Forum is a new recurring space for our scholarly community. As things progress, these sessions will serve as opportunities for our scholars to present their work, share updates from working groups, and discuss projects moving towards publication. For this first session, we wanted to set the context and offer a grounding in the mission and frameworks that hold our work together.

Recorded January 8, 2026

Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction: Fractured Knowledge & Crisis in Academia (Brendan Graham Dempsey)

8:06 – The Metacrisis: A Time Between Worlds (Nick Hedlund)

18:51 – Integrative Metatheory 2.0: Alpha, Beta & Gamma Modes

22:25 – The Institute of Applied Metatheory: Mission & Vision (Robb Smith)

27:36 – 2026 Strategy: Kernel, Middleware & Applications

33:28 – Invitation to Scholars & Closing Remarks

Dear friends,

We’re excited to announce the launch of Integration, a new podcast featuring thinkers forging connections across domains, traditions, and levels of analysis in pursuit of deeper coherence and actionable wisdom. In particular, it unpacks and promotes the work of scholars contributing to Integration: The Journal of Big Picture Theory and Practice, a peer-reviewed, inter-, trans-, and archdisciplinary journal committed to advancing the integrative study and applied use of metatheory and systems thinking for engaging with the unprecedented complexity of the 21st century. It also features scholars whose work is making vital contributions to this broader field.

In the first episode, Brendan Graham Dempsey and Dr. Clément Vidal discuss the work coming out of the Evo-Devo community and Dr. Vidal’s contributions to theorizing the concept of worldview before unpacking the core aspects of a so-called “cosmic evolutionary” worldview, whose ideas resonate deeply with the integrative worldview being developed by the Institute of Applied Metatheory. They unpack his ideas around cosmological artificial selection and its connection to various forms of metaphysics, as well as how value(s) relate to this cosmic picture.

0:00 Introduction
0:58 What is the “Evo-Devo” Research Community?
5:05 The Problem with (and Promise of) “Progress”
11:51 Evo-Devo Research Questions
14:53 Evolutionary Philosophy and the Question of Worldview
20:59 Criteria for Comparing Worldviews
26:05 The Nature of an Evolving Universe: The Origins of Fine-Tuning
34:33 Cosmological Artificial Selection
52:04 Cosmological Variation in a Multiverse?
55:25 Evolution, Development, Complexity and Value
1:08:47 Worldview Competition and Cultural Evolution
1:14:10 Conclusion